It should be emphasised that transliteration is not the same as transcription. Transcription seeks to reproduce the pronunciation of a text. For example, the name of the founder of the Twenty-second dynasty is transliterated as ššnq but transcribed Shoshenq in English, Chéchanq in French, Sjesjonk in Dutch, and Scheschonk (Scheschonq) in German.

Because exact details regarding the phonetics of ancient Egyptian are not completely known, most transcriptions depend on Coptic for reconstruction or are theoretical in nature. Egyptologists, therefore, rely on transliteration in scientific publications.

Important as transliteration is to the field of Egyptology, there is no one standard scheme in use for hieroglyphic and hieratic texts. Some might even argue that there are as many systems of transliteration as there are Egyptologists. However, there are a few closely related systems that can be regarded as conventional. Many non-German-speaking Egyptologists use the system described in Gardiner 1954, whereas many German-speaking scholars tend to opt for that used in the Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache (Erman and Grapow 1926–1953), the standard dictionary of the ancient Egyptian language. However, there is a growing trend, even among English-speaking scholars, to adopt a modified version of the method used in the Wörterbuch (e.g., Allen 2000).

Although these conventional approaches to transliteration have been followed since most of the second half of the nineteenth century to the present day, there have been some attempts to adopt a modified system that seeks to utilise the International Phonetic Alphabet to a certain degree. The most successful of these is that developed by Wolfgang Schenkel (1990), and it is being used fairly widely in Germany and other German-speaking countries. More recent is a proposal by Thomas Schneider (2003) that is even closer to the IPA, but its usage is not presently common. The major criticism levelled against both of these systems is that they give an impression of being much more scientifically accurate with regard to the pronunciation of Egyptian. Unfortunately this perceived accuracy is debatable. Moreover, the systems reflect only the theoretical pronunciation of Middle Egyptian and not the older and later phases of the language, which are themselves to be transliterated with the same system.

The following text (rendered using WikiHiero) is transliterated below in some of the more common schemes.

[Unicode: 𓇓𓏏𓊵𓏙𓊩𓁹𓏃𓋀𓅂𓊹𓉻𓎟𓍋𓈋𓃀𓊖𓏤𓄋𓈐𓏦𓎟𓇾𓈅𓏤𓂦𓈉 ]

(This text is conventionally translated into English as "an offering that the king gives; and Osiris, Foremost of Westerners [i.e., the Dead], the Great God, Lord of Abydos; and Wepwawet, Lord of the Sacred Land [i.e., the Necropolis]." It can also be translated "a royal offering of Osiris, Foremost of the Westerners, the Great God, Lord of Abydos; and of Wepwawet, Lord of the Sacred Land" [Allen 2000:§24.10].)

As the latest stage of pre-CopticEgyptian, Demotic texts have long been transliterated using the same system(s) used for hieroglyphic and hieratic texts. However, in 1980, Demotists adopted a single, uniform, international standard based on the traditional system used for hieroglyphic, but with the addition of some extra symbols for vowels (which are frequently indicated in Demotic[citation needed]) and other letters that were written in the Demotic script. The Demotic Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (or CDD) utilises this method. As this system is likely only of interest to specialists, for details see the references below.

In 1984 a standard, ASCII-based transliteration system was proposed by an international group of Egyptologists at the first Table ronde informatique et égyptologie and published in 1988 (see Buurman, Grimal, et al., 1988). This has come to be known as the Manuel de Codage (or MdC) system, based on the title of the publication, Inventaire des signes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie informatique: Manuel de codage des textes hiéroglyphiques en vue de leur saisie sur ordinateur. It is widely used in e-mail discussion lists and internet forums catering to professional Egyptologists and the interested public.

Although the Manuel de codage system allows for simple "alphabetic" transliterations, it also specifies a complex method for electronically encoding complete ancient Egyptian texts, indicating features such as the placement, orientation, and even size of individual hieroglyphs. This system is used (though frequently with modifications) by various software packages developed for typesetting hieroglyphic texts (such as SignWriter, WinGlyph, MacScribe, InScribe, Glyphotext, WikiHiero, and others).

With the introduction of the Latin Extended Additional block to Unicode version 1.1 (1992) and the addition of Egyptological alef and ayin to Unicode version 5.1 (2008), it is possible to fully transliterate Egyptian texts using a Unicode typeface. The following table only lists the special characters used in various transliteration schemes (see below).

Yod (, i with a Semitistic aleph instead of the dot, both yod and alef being considered possible sound values in the 19th century).[3]

Although six Egyptological and Ugariticist letters were proposed in August 2000,[4] it was not until 2008 (Unicode 5.1) that four of the six letters were encoded:

Designation

Capital

Lowercase

Egyptological alef

Ꜣ
U+A722

ꜣ
U+A723

Egyptological ayin

Ꜥ
U+A724

ꜥ
U+A725

Another two proposals were made regarding the Egyptological yod,[5][6] the eventual result of which was to accept the use of the Cyrillic psili pneumata (U+0486◌҆ ) as one of several possible diacritics for this purpose. The other options use the superscript comma (U+0313) and the right half ring above (U+0357). OpenType tables in fonts will be necessary to support the combination correctly.

Examples showing the Cyrillic option and the reverse sicilicus option are given below:

Egyptological yod workarounds

Designation

Capital

Lowercase

Cyrillic psili pneumata

I҆
U+0049 U+0486

i҆
U+0069 U+0486

Right half ring above

I͗
U+0049 U+0357

ı͗
U+0069 U+0357

The Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale adopted its own Unicode-based transliteration system. It uses the Middle English yogh ⟨ȝ⟩ (Unicode U+021D) for alef (hamza), ⟨j⟩ or Vietnamese ⟨ỉ⟩ (Unicode U+1EC9, i with hook above) for Egyptological yod, and a reverse sicilicus ⟨ʿ⟩ (Unicode U+02BF) for ayin.

The Middle Egyptian language is reconstructed as having had 24 consonantal phonemes. There is at least one hieroglyph with a phonetic value corresponding to each of these phonemes.

The table below gives a list of such "uniliteral signs" along with their conventional transcription and their conventional "Egyptological pronunciation" and probably phonetic value.

It is possible that two phonemes /s/ and /z/ in Old Egyptian were merged in the Middle Egyptian stage. Similarly, there are a number of hieroglyphs that may have been biliteral in Old Egyptian which were reduced to "uniliteral" phonetic value in Middle Egyptian.

^called "ayin" in analogy with Semitic ayin (a voiced pharyngeal fricative), but not necessarily representing the same sound (Semitic ayin tended to be transcribed by Egyptian h, and "Egyptian ayin" was "much softer": William Foxwell Albright, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan (1968), p. 57)